Monday, July 11, 2011

RuneScape is Good

Playing RuneScape extremely hard for the last few days has shown me something that reading blogs or popping in once a week can never show me;

RuneScape is slightly better than when I left it.

Ambient sounds are my favourite effect. I always play with sound on. Some of the updates have been great. I see a bright future ahead of RuneScape, a tarnished one, but still bright.

I've gained far more levels than I expected. Originally, I would have thought it good to get a 1900 total.

I am now at 1912.

70 Crafting and 70 Herblore were done in half the time I thought they'd take. 70 Smithing took 2 days out of an expected 4. I took to Soul Wars and dominated the matches to obtain 4 levels of Magic in, incredibly, a single evening.

The beginning of this post mentions a bright, but tarnished future for RuneScape. Here's why:

In my previous post, I mentioned I sold my Godsword. Nothing special there. I found a way to spend that money I got, too. I split it between 3 of my best friends I've ever met on RuneScape. 2 million per person.

It was meaningful to me, because a Godsword was for a long time, a distant dream of mine. I have nothing against the fact that I paid 20 million for it and only got 6 million in return. That's fine. It was a dream, not an investment. And when I gave my friends the money, I didn't give money to them. One had 70+ in every skill. The other was a level 130 something on the way to 99 Herblore. The other marched around every day in Armadyl armour.

It wasn't charity, it was a sentiment. In essence, I had given them each a small part of my dreams and they were grateful. All of them asked if I was sure I wanted to do this. I hit 'Accept Trade' first every time and they waited to make sure it was okay. They're far better people than me, all of them, in that regard. 2 of them promised to, "never spend your dreams". I nudged them on. Told them to buy something in case of an emergency, or blow it off on a friend.

That's a pretty nice story, if you ask me.

Thing is, I'm typing this post in between waiting for my Fruit Bat's Special Move bar to recharge so I can use Fruitfall. Papayas = money.

Why would I need money anymore? I have a Third-age full helmet. I have Armadyl clothing. I got my Staff of Light and still have over 8 million to spare. It's like parking a Bugatti in front of a soup kitchen and telling the worker there you haven't eaten for 2 days.

It's because I have a dream. I have one last dream to fulfill before I can retire happily.

I don't have enough time.

I bought a Third-age helm, an Armadyl Chestplate. I have everything except one item to complete my final outfit. I need an Armadyl Chainskirt. Not cheap at 14 million, but considering the numbers I've been dropping in the last couple of days, it's pocket change. Problem is, after I gave my Godsword returns away, I only had 6 million left. I sold as much as possible and it's now up to 5.5 million. I have a week left before I consider RuneScape over. I doubt I can pull it off.

And that's why today, I feel like the worst person in the world when I asked the first of those friends to return 2 million. The other 2 aren't online. It's a sick metaphor. They've helped reach my dreams and I gave them a share of those dreams. Now I have to ask for it back, to achieve one final dream.

I'm up to 7.5 million, now. I can ask one more for 9.5, another for 11.5. The rest I'll do myself. I'm closing in, now. The papayas help.

Worst part is, if the damage to RuneScape's future had been stopped, I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be well on my way to a happy retirement by now. Normally, I'd catch Rocktails for money. Fishing got me where I am today. Before sudden deflation, I was worth over 110 million at a certain point. It's dropped to little above 75, but it's a lot and fishing got me there. The problem is, 25 Rocktails into my planned 3500, I did a price check out of curiosity. Just to see if I would be pulling in 50k or 45k per 25 fish.

It turns out, it was closer to 35k.

I pay attention. Since playing more, I've seen the complaints about the Botstorm (I'm coining that phrase, bitch) that's overtaken RuneScape after free trade returns. I've seen them, too. Most of the time, I see players going, "Anyone who's not a botter wanna chat?" at resource areas. The bots are just water in a lake, now. They're part of life. In the strictest terms, they're not a problem for us. We don't starve. Sure, prices drop a bit, but we can just take the extra week or two to get our next partyhat.

I don't have an extra week or two.

Rocktails managed to drop over %25 in the time since Free Trade returned. There are so many bots out there, that they managed to push the price of a vital commodity down by 25% when it was once stable. Imagine if your fuel prices dropped %25 in the span of 5 months and continued dropping from there because of oversupply. Imagine how much more supply it must take.

And that's why I'm taking my chances with papayas, rather than go back to the caves for Rocktail. It might not be worth it. One of the best foods in RuneScape, that takes over 95 in a skill to catch, catches at less than 200 per hour and is situated in a cave of level 120 monsters isn't even worth catching anymore.

Fruit bat's gone. 180k in 45 minutes. Very, very slightly ahead of 170k in an hour at Rocktails.

One final dream.

I've been wearing my helmet non-stop. I deserve the ego-boost; the break. I'm effectively retired. I can walk around and show off. I've been drawing a lot of beggars, too. They can't be bothered to make money, but they can identify valuable equipment in a large crowd. One even came up to me and asked me for 100k in a Soul Wars match.

My response is the same, "Go work your ass off like I did. Maybe you'll get money that way."

I'm going to work my ass off, like I used to. Maybe I'll get money that way.